


All Things Pass

by plottingalong



Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage, TodHunter Moon Series - Angie Sage
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Cerys and Marcia friendship, F/M, Ghosts, dead Marcia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25419613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plottingalong/pseuds/plottingalong
Relationships: Milo Banda/Marcia Overstrand
Kudos: 2





	All Things Pass

The swirling mist cleared out of Marcia’s eyes one last time. She blinked, once, twice, and glanced around her. Surprisingly, though she remembered pushing herself to her feet a moment before, she was still on the cold marble ground. She tried to get up, but to her surprise, the marble gave way underneath her. She looked around quickly, trying to assess her situation, and as she looked at her weak legs, damning them as usual. They were pale and unsteady, and as she stared at them for a minute longer, she gave out a shriek of surprise that nobody heard.   
She tried to get up once more, but failed yet again, and she knew. 

She, Marcia Overstrand, had departed from one life and gone onto another. She’d be stuck like this, on the floor, for a year, unable to move. She sighed. It wasn’t that bad. She was 97, after all, old, arthritic, falling apart. She knew she’d need to leave that life one day. She only regretted she hadn’t died with Milo, but in some random Castle corridor, away from even her beloved Wizard Tower.   
She didn’t know why, but the silent sobbing came, utter shock, she supposed. It’d happened so quickly. She’d only had a few chest pains this morning- it was one of the days when she felt like she might live forever. Of course, nobody did, but she regretted not getting to do all the things she wanted to do, and wouldn’t be able to as a ghost.  
Suddenly, she saw a wisp of red out of the corner of her eye. It could’ve been any of the Queens or Princesses in this musty old castle, but the voice confirmed it to be Cerys. 

“Marcia?” She asked, aghast. There was nothing nasty in her voice, no hint to their rivalry. Marcia couldn’t answer. She wished Cerys would leave her alone, in peace, rueing all the things she didn’t do, and, of course, being taken away from Milo, who was still amongst the living. Cerys’ figure bent down, right next to Marcia’s sprawled body. 

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” she said after a moment. “Being dead, I mean.”  
Marcia didn’t answer. Milo’s figure haunted her, as did Septimus’s. She’d left them, though she’d promised not to, and now they were on different sides of the veil. She was only a shadow. The real Marcia Overstrand, she realized with a sob, was dead. 

“You get used to it after a while,” Cerys continued softly. “And… as for your loved ones… they’ll cross too, just you wait.”

“I’m nothing now,” Marcia whispered hoarsely, unsure why she was confiding to her archenemy, “just another memory.”

“A memory of a great woman,” Cerys whispered back, sweetly, with youth still in her voice. “You were a great woman, Marcia Overstrand, and now you are a memory. And the memory is sometimes all that matters.”

“Why are you being so kind to me?” Marcia murmured, “why are you doing this?”

“Because,” Cerys said softly, “there was no one to do this for me. And we’re on the same side now.”  
Just then, there was a crash of breaking china several floors away. 

“Is somebody coming?” Marcia asked nervously. She’d have to prepare herself to see the others’ reaction of her corpse. She wasn’t sure she was ready for it, and she definitely didn’t want to dwell on the fact the Cerys, of all people, was being kind to her.

“I’ll go check.”Cerys said, and disappeared. A moment later, she returned, grinning from ear to ear. 

“It was Milo,” Cerys explained. “He knocked something over and is headed the other way, the back door.”

“Such an idiot,” Marcia sighed lovingly, and Cerys smiled, her violet eyes suddenly glowing again. 

“Yes,” she agreed.   
Marcia shut her eyes and tried to imagine him, carelessly swaggering like the pirate he was, in his last happy moments, before their happy ending was shattered, at least briefly, until he would join this side.  
A couple minutes later, shouts of discovery filled the halls. She’d been discovered by a passing ghost. 

As people flooded in, and Marcia could do nothing but watch as they stared at her corpse, Cerys stayed by the whole while, invisible but there.


End file.
